cherold

The emergency room medical drama The Pitt plays out more-or less in real time, with each hour episode representing one hour of a single day. The first episode is rather overloaded with character exposition, as the show's writers seemed to feel all the characters personalities and backstory should be laid out immediately. So you've got the smug handsome guy, the nepobaby, the world-weary head doctor, the hard-shelled one, the hapless one, the nice nerd, blah blah blah. It's a bit much.

But it does clear the way for the other episodes to slowly flesh out these characters while giving us endless deadly, gory emergencies. What you get from the series is that life in the emergency is INTENSE, with freaky cases, medical disagreements, and residents fighting to get those exciting procedures under their belt.

And then, when you start thinking, wow, how can anyone deal with this level of stress, the series turns it all up to 11, and you can hardly breath.

The writing is excellent. The cast is excellent, particularly Noah Wylie as a doctor oozing gravitas and Isa Briones as a prickly first year (I saw her last year on Broadway in Hadestown and she was incredible - and just as prickly).

This is absolutely a great series. I don't know how they're going to match it in season 2 - will they have to turn it up to 12 now?

Watch this.

This fun series starts every episode with some incredibly melodramatic moment followed by a very retro title font, and fun touches like that are part of the reason I like this series.

The production values are excellent. After I finished with Poirot I did some research on "the best Miss Marple" and people say Joan Hickson, but that series is pretty old and creaky, which is why after watching one book adaptation I switched to this version.

I'm glad I did, because I also liked both of the two actresses playing the role here more than Hickson, who (at least in that first episode) seemed dotty and tangential. I much prefer either Geraldine McEwan's spry, mischievous Marple or Julia McKenzie's pleasantly old-ladyish one.

The thing is, I never had that clear an idea of what Miss Marple would be like. With Hercules Poirot, I instantly knew if the portrayal was right (Suchet) or wrong (everyone else). But Miss Marple was just a genteel little old lady, so unless you did something crazy, like casting the decidedly non-genteel Margaret Rutherford, I would be open to any reasonable interpretation.

Apparently some people don't like the plot changes, but I haven't read the books for decades, so I'm fine with plot changes as long as the plot still makes sense. For the most part I think it works fine, although there were times when I looked up the original plot on wikipedia and thought, oh, that makes a lot more sense.

Whodunit fans should definitely watch this one.

This laugh-a-minute romp features two nerdy lesbians who form a fight club so they can hook up with cheerleaders. While I haven't seen the horny-lesbian angle before, in many ways this is a throwback/take-off/tribute to those teen sex romps of the 80s, mixed up with a little Heathers attitude and a belief that there is no top too high to go over.

This is one of those smart dumb movies, where the characters and scenarios are idiotic and yet there are these sharp moments of wit that slice in from the sides. The movie is, yes, about horny teens, friendship, betrayal, solidarity, and coming from behind, but it's also about how anything can snowball insanely.

It's also got a Lord of the Flies quality, since even though there are adults, they don't supervise so much as shrug and walk away, which results in some mayhem that is a little beyond your typical sex romp.

The cast is excellent, the writing is excellent, the movie is excellent, and it's all dumb as hell. You should watch it.